It has been a very long time since I have contributed to my natural history blog – more than a year has passed. Depression is a force that puts a writer down…
Ever since the January, 2025 election, I have been horrified at what has been happening in our country. My faith in my fellow man and my hope for our collective futures has been deeply eroded. Our nation has become more and more divided; a dangerous path to follow. Within the five-word title of our country, there is one word that means far more than all the others; that word is “United.” National unison is the bedrock of this nation, the fundamental core of its history, and essential to its future.
Throughout this unfolding saga, the country’s focus has been decidedly political, diverting our attentions away from the stunning amount of damage that our national leader and his entourage of sycophants have inflicted on wild lands, wildlife protection laws, and wildlife habitats.
Considering that my life’s work has centered around teaching natural history and the protection of wild lands, and that I have a love and appreciation for my country and its democratic ideals, it is no wonder that I have not been in the requisite mood to write much of anything during the past year.
Lately, however, my mood has been steadily improving. Americans are raising their voices, peacefully and actively resisting that which is fundamentally wrong. On a local level, my spirit has been lifted by the sight of a lush emergence of brilliant green grasses and other understory plants that have sprung to vivid life in our mesquite bosque and all across the valley. A return of the normal winter rains has enabled this welcome change on the land. After more than a year of drought, the surge of new growth warms my heart and mind.
In what follows, I offer a photographic and written glimpse into some of the past year’s wild happenings. The land, the plants, and the animals depicted are a reminder that the limitless beauty and wonder of the natural world is still there – to heal, inspire, and bring light to our spirits…
In late summer, I awoke early one morning to find these paint-fresh tracks of an adult black bear that had stepped over my entry steps and walked beneath my ramada, leaving its signature tracks in fine-grained, dry soil. 2025 was my best year yet for seeing Gila monsters in the wild – a total of seven sightings, five of which occurred here within our velvet mesquite bosque. This is one of those lizards, a creature that spends the great majority of its lifetime below ground, out of sight. I was lucky enough to witness this seldom-seen event for a second time last summer, when I came upon this pair of large male western diamondbacks dueling behind our shop building. Their elegant dance went on for hours. Later, I looked for and found the victor, curled up with a female rattlesnake. The two males had been following her scent trail, resulting in a meeting that quickly morphed into a struggle for mating rights. For more info. on this behavior and more images, have a look at the previous blog, accessed via this address: https://ralphwaldt.com More than twenty years had elapsed before my wife and I saw a coati on our property. We had found their tracks many times, but had never seen one here until this big bruiser of a male showed up last month. He stayed for several days after discovering a taste for the bird seed that Kathleen spreads on the ground every morning. Note the thick, winter-furred tail and the very well-developed front and hind quarters of this impressive old male. Unlike most coatis, we never saw this animal walk with its tail raised vertically in lemur fashion. I wonder if this has something to with expressing his place in the society of these social mammals. Mature males commonly spend much of each year alone, as opposed to others of their species. Photo by Kathleen Waldt. Coatis have long, flexible rostrums (a.k.a. “snouts”). Concealed within their long snouts is an intricate maze of paper-thin turbinate bones covered with an extensive network of nerves that enable the animal’s exceptional ability to smell – and thereby locate – much of their food. The powerful claws on their front feet did not evolve for fighting, nor for killing prey – they are for digging. Among the coatis that roam the Middle San Pedro Valley, digging for arthropod grubs and pupae furnishes these Sierra Madrean mammals with the bulk of their diets. Photo by Kathleen Waldt.
This huge moth fluttered by me like a bat-turned-insect one afternoon, landing upside down on the roof of my ramada. Its common name is “Black Witch Moth,” not what one would consider a flattering moniker. I did not perceive it in such a light; I saw a perfect expression of nature’s form and beauty, a creature whose wings were adorned with intricate artwork and remarkable camouflage. The less degrading name for this insect is, in technical terms, Ascalapha odorata. Autumn leaves falling from the cottonwoods that line the banks of the San Pedro River sometimes exhibit these fascinating patterns. They are the tracings of insect larvae collectively called “leaf miners.” Leaf mining is a type of behavior that involves larvae that live within a leaf, feeding on the inner tissues while leaving the epidermal (outer) layers of the leaf intact. This affords the larvae some measure of protection from predation. Leaf mining evolved in several different families of insects, including flies, beetles, and moths.
A quiet section of the San Pedro River in early November reflects an immaculate tapestry of form, light, and color, a place of quiet beauty that instills a sense peace, calm, and gratitude into its viewers.
Among the most incredibly adept fliers in the avian world are a group of hawks known as accipiters. This gorgeous Cooper’s hawk was photographed while drinking – and then bathing – in one of our bird watering dishes. I have watched these amazing hawks pursue birds (their most favored food) at breakneck speed into and through thick brush with the ease and finesse of a darting insect. Photo by Kathleen Waldt. On a broiling hot early summer day, Kathleen captured this image of an adult bobcat, standing some ten feet from our front doorway. Opening the inner door as slowly and quietly as she could, Kathleen photographed the cat through the screen door, giving the image a soft, pastel look. Among the four species of skunk that inhabit the San Pedro River Drainage, hooded skinks are the most common in the valley floor. Their lengthy and long-haired tails set them apart from the other three species. Yesterday morning, I had walked only a short distance out the door when I spotted something that was pure white at the base of a mesquite. Immediately, I thought of the tail of the hooded skunk that has been wandering our bosque almost every night for the past half year or so. Just as quickly, I realized that something wasn’t right, for the tail was entirely flat on the ground. Sure enough, it was the tail of our resident skunk, and all life had left its owner. Perched atop the body of the skunk was a great horned owl. Photo by Kathleen.
The signature plume of the skunk’s long, snow-white tail extends far beyond its predator. It is not uncommon for great horned owls to tackle prey as large and formidable as skunks and house cats. Photo by Kathleen.
The owl remained on the ground with its large meal all day long, alternating between bouts of feeding interspersed with naps. Most of the time, the bird stayed atop its prey, protecting its dinner by covering it from sight with a look that says, “I dare you!” An eruption of fresh, new growth, composed primarily of London rocket (Sisymbrium irio), and Mediterranean grass, (Schismus arabicus / barbatus), graces the mesquite forest with a verdant refulgence of color and life. Despite the fact that these understory plants are non-native, their presence shades the ground, conserving soil moisture, while providing a substantial infusion of organic matter that will help build and maintain the duff layer and enhance underlying spoil health. The vivid color of new, green plant growth has always fed my soul and never fails to paint smiles on my face.
Cherish and protect our common mother, the Earth.
Foster a deep respect and reverence for all life.
Show kindness, compassion, and respect for your fellow human beings, regardless of race, sex, language, political affiliations, or country.
Resist passing judgement on others.
Lastly, a reminder: if you are reading this in your email, you can’t see the header image for this post, nor can you access scores of my other blog posts on local natural history. For all of that, my site is easily accessed, cost-free, and obligation free: https://ralphwaldt.com
For the past twenty years or so, I have participated in a coordinated volunteer project aimed at monitoring the presence of water along the length of the San Pedro River in southeastern Arizona. Organized by The Nature Conservancy, this project provides important data to scientists, land managers, and many others on the health of the river system during the hottest and driest month of the year. The data is collected the old-fashioned way – gathered by teams who experience the river in the best and most intimate manner possible, by walking and wading. Every June, I collect a portion of this data along a rare, perennially-flowing reach of the San Pedro located in the river’s middle valley, often accompanied by friends and neighbors. This year, two wonderful friends who also happen to be great neighbors assisted me in this worthwhile and delightful task.
Since June always brings oven-like temperatures, we began walking around 5:30am along a waterless stretch of the riverbed. Almost immediately, we discovered fresh tracks of an adult black bear and a cougar, etched in dry sand. One and a half miles in, the magic of water appeared. From that point on, the river flowed steadily. Because the brush is often nearly impenetrable along portions of the riverbanks, we waded, a much easier way to travel as long as one can avoid hidden lenses of quicksand. More mammal signs and tracks appeared; Coue’s whitetail deer, mule deer, javelina, coyote, bobcat, raccoon, coati, skunks, cottontail rabbits, mice and rock squirrels. Familiar bird songs spilled from the forest; summer tanagers and kingbirds, ash-throated flycatchers and song sparrows, southwestern willow flycatchers and black phoebes, grey hawks, tyrannulets, northern cardinals, Lucy’s and yellow warblers, and more.
The river in June is a different world from the surrounding vastness of desert habitat types – humid, verdant with profuse life, cool and shaded. It feels and smells almost subtropical. So much life graces the river and its forests in June that these annual walks have become my favorite time to explore and experience the beauty of the San Pedro.
Wading this desert river in the heat of June is magical. The cottonwood-willow forest stands tall and green, casting shade and coolness enabled by millions of fluttering leaves. The forest’s understory is verdant with lush growth. Eight-foot tall burr reed (genus Scirpus) plants crowd the riverbanks. Aquatic patches of speedwell (genus Veronica) glitter with multitudes of blue-purple blossoms. Tall willows form a vivid green arch overhanging the river. Birds sing from the depths of the forest, many butterflies, bees, and wasps drink from water’s edge, and scores of lowland leopard frogs leap at one’s every step. Below the surface, schools of long-finned dace are darting like shafts of animated light through the clear water. The continued presence of native frogs and fish are strong, positive indicators of the health of this aquatic ecosystem.
Among the most remarkable predators in the insect world, dragonflies are a common sight along the summer river. Some twenty-two years ago, an entomologist discovered nearly one dozen species of dragonflies and damsel flies that were new to science along this part of the river.
We waded for a couple of miles, feeling the warm, shallow waters of the river filling our shoes, until the waterway started to broaden and slowly deepen. I suspected a beaver dam was ahead. We climbed up on shore, then began to weave our way through a dense tangle of tamarisk and seep willow. Before long, we could see the beaver pond clearly, the water deeper and deeper, then the dam, plugging the river with a meter-tall, thirty-foot span of branches, twigs, tree limbs, rocks, and mud. I was elated to see that this reach of the river had beaver activity once again. The ecological and hydrologic benefits of beavers to this river – and many other waterways – are legion. I devoted an essay to this important topic in my book, The Life of the San Pedro River.
A cool, deep pond extends upstream of the beaver dam. Such dams hold more water within the river system, helping to recharge the aquifers that feed the river and its forest. The positive benefits of beaver ponds to plant life and many wildlife species could fill a book. Note the turbidity of the impounded water, a sign that the beaver(s) had been active there the night prior.
A moment of reflection seated atop the beaver dam before I was almost envenomated by a rattlesnake. Photo by Tom Talbott.
My companions and I slithered down the steep riverbank to begin wading the final stretch below the dam. We had taken just a few steps when one of my friends suddenly threw his arm around me and pulled me out of harm’s way. A 3-foot western diamondback rattlesnake, coiled too close for comfort along the edge of the river channel, erupted in a frenzy of rattling. The forward third of the reptile’s body was off the ground and formed into an s-curve as the snake’s glistening black tongue waved slowly, curled backwards over its snout. Fully cocked, primed, and quite willing to strike. My fresh shoe print was about 14 inches from the rattlesnake. Had I not been yanked so suddenly by my alert friend, this snake would have probably tagged me. I have never come so close, despite encountering hundreds of diamondbacks here over the course of the last two decades. This experience underscores a crucial rule that I try to teach to everyone that I take into the wilds here – you should watch where every footstep is headed during the warmer months in southern Arizona! Sometimes, that is easier said than done.
This is the snake that I stepped far too close to, coiled, rattling, and very ready to strike defensively. Note the recent injury on its back, something that may have amplified its angry mood. If I weighed in at less than a pound or two, and a huge, towering, 200-pound bipedal mammal threatened to step on me, I’d be in a biting mood too.
